State v. Robinson, 2022-NCCOA-61, ___ N.C. App. ___ (Feb. 1, 2022)

In this Gaston County case, the defendant was summarily found in direct criminal contempt by a magistrate. The contempt order arose out of a situation where the defendant came to the magistrate’s office to report a death threat she had received on her cell phone. The magistrate declined to look at the phone because cell phones were not permitted in the courtroom. The magistrate then told the defendant “that she needed to leave and take the cell phone out or [he] would hold her in contempt.” ¶ 5. The magistrate sat in silence for two or three minutes while the defendant repeated her claim, and then shut the blinds to the magistrate’s window, saying “we’re finished.” Id. The defendant left and made it to her car, but by that point the magistrate had informed the sheriff’s office that he was holding the defendant in contempt. Officers returned the defendant to the courtroom where the magistrate, without any additional proceedings, passed the contempt order through the window and gave it to the defendant. On appeal, the superior court found, among other things, that the magistrate told the defendant “that she was going to have to leave the courtroom and stop arguing with him, or he would hold her in contempt of court.” ¶ 8. The superior court concluded that the magistrate twice gave the defendant summary notice of the contempt charge and the conduct on which it was based, and then gave the defendant an opportunity to respond. The superior court entered an order holding the defendant in contempt and sentenced her to 48 hours of time already served. 

On appeal to the Court of Appeals, the defendant argued that some of the trial judge’s findings of fact were not supported by the evidence. The Court of Appeals agreed, concluding that the evidence did not support the finding that the magistrate told the defendant to stop arguing with him. Rather, the magistrate told the defendant to leave the courtroom on account of the phone, and did not say anything further before ultimately closing the window blinds. Additionally, the Court concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support the trial court’s finding that the defendant continued to argue with the magistrate in response to being given notice that she would be held in contempt. To the contrary, the magistrate’s own testimony indicated that the defendant was repeating her claim about the underlying death threat, not arguing with the magistrate’s contempt warning.

The Court went on to note that the superior court appeared to be reviewing validity of the proceedings leading up to the magistrate’s order rather than conducting a de novo review. Moreover, the Court noted that summary contempt proceedings by the magistrate were not appropriate in any event where the contempt was not imposed substantially contemporaneously with the offending acts. Here, the magistrate effectively closed court by closing the window blinds and did not actually hold the defendant in summary contempt until she had left the courtroom for her car. Once court was closed, there was no proceeding to be delayed or disrupted, and summary contempt proceedings were therefore inappropriate. 

The Court reversed the trial court’s order.